


cogs slip at the same time

by dabblingDilettante



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Non-Binary Character, Other, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabblingDilettante/pseuds/dabblingDilettante
Summary: Knowing that this your only good timeline makes it a little too easy to be aware of all the bad ends.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Melodrama station and the train is crashing.
> 
> My original concept was depressing but I wanted to write something optimistic, and indulgent, and still melodramatic, and also Ren, who is my dear daughter who I love with all my heart. This is more gen than shippy. Spoilers for all the way through the Eleventh Hour.

"What's up?" Taako leaned in till he was draped over Sazed. "You're looking pretty shocked, my guy."

The dying lights of a show stuck to their skin. Both of them glowing, purposeful and not, as night set. It had become familiar. Better than jumping between troupes. Safer. Happier. It had taken years to get this far, but he'd done it.

"Have you seen yourself lately?" Their hands fit against his back like the smile he couldn't see. He'd really done it. Sazed murmured, "Where you're going, I'm not sure anyone could follow."

And he laughed. "Isn't stopping you from trying, is it?"

He did that a lot.

 

 

\---

 

 

"Business disagreement," Taako said.

Ren wiped out the inside of a glass and picked up another. She'd been doing that for hours. Taking the kid out of the loop apparently wasn't as hard as taking the loop out of the kid. But she'd grown up. Lonely street-smart dark elf Ren with a face he couldn't remember, from a seat he couldn't remember, because nothing stuck to his mind much beyond recipes and warm hands and uncomfortable truths. One of thousands like her.

Like him.

"I'm sorry I asked," she said.

"Can't hide from the hard truths! But most fans don't like to hear that their favorite show fell apart."

"No," Ren interrupted. "No, Taako, I mean ... I'm sorry about bringing it up."

She wasn't polishing glass anymore.

"Have the kids turned Q & A into something else since I last looked? I know I've been out of the scene for a few years, but you should warn me about these things."

Ren shook her head. "You just looked ..." And bit her lip. "I don't know. I guess I don't really know you, but ... you looked kind of sad. I think it's sad, at least. That you and Sazed broke up."

Words like water off his back. Taako didn't think much. "That's how things go, sweetpea."

"Do you still talk to him?"

On their piddling stage, Taako would set up jars. A bit of firelight dust, some sulfur, an ounce of gold because everything cost something. Sazed would lift him on their shoulders to hang them in the trees, and kids ran around their feet in pre-show giddiness. A quick shake and a short incantation, and they'd light up like lightning bugs. Burn his hands. But he was used to doing that.

That was the closest he had to spotlights.

"The two of you -"

Standing on a stage, improvisation thrown back and forth, there were never many people. But he acted like he was batting a thousand. Pulled them into the thrall of magic and a show.

"You looked like you were so happy." Ren sighed. "That was one of the first times I ever saw people using magic for fun."

All the heat of a stove and dozens of eyes and pseudo stage light, and yet - it was only Sazed's hand on his back that made him sweat.

"Yeah, well." Taako didn't really think about all that nonsense. Heat swam under his skin. He'd been awake too long. "That's what acting's for."

 

 

\---

 

 

When Sazed appeared in his life, Taako couldn't say.

Memory was a haze more like sickness. Childhood was a mess of static and burns and recipes, troupes he'd jumped ship sooner than let himself get kicked out. There were a lot of things he couldn't remember, and he didn't particularly care to. But there was a point where Sazed was not there, and a point where they were, and that had become a constant. So the story of how they'd met always changed, depending on the locale, the people asking, if they sounded curious or starry-eyed or disgusted. There wasn't much to be sure about, but he kept in mind the important things.

Taako knew - they rolled their eyes when he called them his man, his guy, his dude. They were big and smart and big and warm and big. They were a soft spot to sleep against in winter, in open air. They knew their way around everywhere, without a single spell to guide them. They knew how to speak a dozen languages but could barely read three, trading back and forth with fumbling tongues, sitting over scraps of parchment. They weren't very good at cooking but they were quite strong and quite eager. They were full of a hundred charming phrases, a thousand endearments for anyone around, too easy to pick up. They had a tendency to stare a little too long. They could push a payment out of anyone, and Taako learned to do the same.

His skills. Their management. They traded a lot. Figured out more together than they every could have done alone.

And one night, he'd turned back into the hand on his back, wrapped his arms up around their neck, and slipped.

Taako knew that they thought he hung the moon.

 

 

\---

 

 

"Who do you think did that?"

Merle's arm wasn't as quick on the draw at night. The telescope didn't respond to his awkward movements. Taako floated lazily two feet off the ground, watching the show, waiting to see if he could manage it.  Not an offer of help on the air.  But if Merle really wanted it, he'd ask, stubborn as all of them were.

"One of the kids musta broken it already," he muttered. "Or I got sold a bum set and we'll have to go back up to Fantasy Costco to-"

"Burn it down?"

"Nah. Too extreme." Merle chuckled. "Maybe burn Garfield's ass, if I'm in the mood, but only with the good book."

Taako harrumphed. "I was talking about the moon."

"Burn down the moon?"

"Yes," Taako said. "Burn down the moon over a bad product, we're on board now, ain't no stopping this train we're on."

Merle dropped the telescope and laid out, insultingly casual. "All you had to say was no."

"No, no, Merle, too late, I've got this plan in motion. Get Johann and Killian in on this one, it'll be a party. Finally got a use for all those points of yours!"

"Taako," he said, in that gross family way. "Fire needs oxygen. Space has no oxygen. No partying skill will ever make up for that fact."

"I wasn't aware that magic was suddenly attuned to rules like chemistry or sensibility."

"So, what about the moon," Merle interrupted.

He was too calm for Taako.

"Who got the moon up there," he said. "Like. Who hung it, do you think."

"Pan ... ? I dunno, I never payed all that much attention at camp. It was more about trees and nature than all that cool stuff like space. I don't think we learned what stars were till 7th grade. Before then, mom just said they were pearls that got tossed into the sky."

Taako hummed. Very Merle.

"Unless you're talking about the fake moon, though I'd be a little worried if you didn't know that part."

"Oh, nope, I know exactly who did it. The void fish flew right up and stapled it there, savior of all moonkind."

"Cause I was gonna say it was the Director," Merle went on, suspicion and hesitance creeping into his voice.

"Yeah, no, really?" Taako snorted. "They would have loved her, I guess."

"Who?"

Taako opened his mouth. Closed it. Let it run. "Some people who watched my show used to talk about hanging up the moon. Apparently elves don't really know anything about it.  Who woulda figured."

 

 

\---

 

 

June - not Junebug, he reminded himself, not particularly keen to overuse a nickname with that much baggage - liked Magnus. She liked him a lot. The rustic hospitality thing was serving him well for once.

"And she threw you? That whole way?" She looked more like the youth she was, around him. "Like a cannonball?"

"Well, y'know. I am a pretty big guy." Magnus flicked his nose. It didn't make the blush go away. "Not everyone can throw like I can, but she did her damndest."

"He means he totally flopped," Taako called out. "I saw the whole thing!  Slamming straight into the ground!"

The typical flush of his face took a turn for the worse. "Hey, uh. Taako? Mind letting Merle in through that window if the two of you are gonna be wasting spell slots like this?"

"I don't need a spell to be honest to children." Taako pressed a hand to his chest, offense ringing in his tone. "Unlike some of us, here, Magnus."

"Yes, indeed-ey," June said. "Unlike some'a them, Mister Magnus."

Windchimes rang and he was laughing again. For everything that happened, all three of them always started cackling like no tomorrow the moment they could breathe. They'd drown one day like that.

The first person Magnus came back to visit was June.  Every time. Taako couldn't tell if it was because she was basically the center of the town, or if Cassidy just cowed the man, or if it was something else. He'd never extrapolated much on what the chalice had offered and Taako was just fine with not asking.

So they'd stop by Paloma, rough it up at Ren's saloon before she tossed out half the place, bring nonsense candy for Cassidy, new badges for Roswell, a flame for Istus, a dozen other things. But all roads led somewhere, and June still tended to end up at the destination.

Magnus liked to tell her stories about their adventures. Give her updates on everything outside. Put all that time and space in her head to good use. Taako didn't know what to say to her.

But she sat down on the window sill where he floated and hung out her feet, kicking heels against the wall.

"Sorry about all that," she said.

"Is this apologize to Taako day? I appreciate it, but there are other Taako-centric holidays I've been aiming for, I don't wanna use it up on this."

"The chalice couldn't get you for a moment," she hummed.

"Oh," he said.

"It seemed sort of cruel to me." She went on without missing a beat. "It couldn't find anything good to change, so it showed that off." June chuckled. He understood it. "I knew you wouldn't take the offer.  There wasn't anywhere good that would have led either of you.  But it insisted."

"I thought about it." The words came out like they always did - he didn't think about them at all.

And she was staring.

And staring.

"Why?" Staring. "You woulda had to live with knowing that, there."

"Yep," he said. "Sure would." Like that was an answer. "But, uh ... I don't think I could have held up a universe like that by myself for too long?  I mean, the branding trouble was enough on its own, but being at the center of a stage is already enough work.  The center of the universe?  Great offer, but no thanks, can't trick me into doing all that work."

June nodded. Too much understanding in old eyes, a young face.  And the two of them laughed.

 

 

\---

 

 

"You look surprised," he said. "Sazed."

Not his guy. Not his dude, not his man, not his anything.

"Well," they said. "Why wouldn't I be surprised?" Sweat still beading their forehead. Matting down their hair. "You're always plucking stars out of the sky."

Bile in his mouth. Bottle in his hand, behind his back, the pressure starting to burn. Glamorsprings was safe and sound, not a hint of eyes to stare at this new show.  He'd fucked up worse here, somehow, but he knew what they could do.

"Not like you could keep up," he said.

For once, he wasn't joking.

Or - he wouldn't have been. If he'd taken the offer.

He didn't look for them.  And thanked Istus, maybe, that they didn't have a single reason to look for him. Standing with two feet on the ground made him antsier now. At least on the moon, there wasn't a chance of being found. The fake moon. The one next to the big one he was supposed to have hung.

"Right," he muttered.

Taako didn't take the chalice. There was no good reason to. Just plenty of bad ones. But unlike Merle - he didn't believe in any gods. Unlike Magnus - he wasn't looking forward to any afterlife. And there was only one way that road would have ended.

There were good reasons not to think too hard on these things.

But in the back of his head remained hate and anger and betrayal and bitterness and sickness, and the nightmare of what he could do. Years of troupes, running, jumping, place to place, it would be too easy to fall into everything he had been struggling to escape. Everything no one thought could be escaped.

So Taako kept his hands out of poison, transmuted or not, and away from anyone who could have brought out worse in him. There were reasons enough to hold back. He could say he wasn't going to get any better, but the truth was - he was too selfish to let go of the good here.

 

 

\---

 

 

"Check this one out," Ren said.

In a snap, a small blue flame appeared over her finger. She picked up a shot glass and begun to spin it in the air over the flickering fire. Each spin, Ren drew her hand further away, staring intently at the liquid inside. Bubbles sped from the bottom and threatened to overflow their tiny prison. That wasn't the show to watch, though - Taako's eyes flickering over to watch her subtle gestures beckoning for ingredients.

It wasn't a simple task to use mage hand without looking. Knowing every space around without a doubt took a true showman and she knew her zone. Powder danced up from a bag behind her, swirling around in a strange kaleidoscope. Fire started to catch along the particles. Streaks of sugar flamed out of existence, lighting up just enough to melt the edges of everything around them. A moment longer, nervous twist of her mouth faintly evident from behind the glass, and she tried to snap. Once. Twice. Her thumb slipped against her fingers. Frustration took up her focus and made the fire build and Taako smiled at the familiarity.

Ren finally snapped her heel against ground and the powder deigned to follow. It spun into boiling water. Air and bubbles sizzled over, but a smile was growing on her face too. In the next moment, the flame on her thumb had died. She caught the glass, and he caught her wince. But her breath was immediate and frost fell over the water. Bubbles froze up in the instant before popping, sharp needle-point webbing crossing over, and she slammed the glass on the table.

When she moved her hand away, the glass went too, and all that was left was a small block of gelatin.

"Jello shots," she said, pride resoundant in her voice. "I modified that one recipe you showed off to account for the alcohol."

"Not too bad," he said. "But when it comes to transmutation." Taako flicked the side, making it slinky away and back again. "It makes it a little easier to fudge the results."

Ren's nose crinkled from the smell.

"Got anyone in here who might be able to hold their alcohol?"

And a grin broke along her face, awkward teeth to bear, like a mirror of his own. "I doubt it," she said, a little louder. "Most folks around here wouldn't take a bet to save their lives."

"Excuuuuse me!" Predictable as the clock running past 12, the two of them hid laughter behind their hands. "What was that about a bet?"

Ren was composed again, selling herself, vibrant for every charred spark sticking to her clothes.

So he'd never be a proper chef again. Lost just about any place to be on solid ground. But Taako didn't need reassurance that this was the best possible timeline.

Looking at her show, though. He was selfish enough that he enjoyed the reminder.

"Think you could handle this shot? Me and my protege were trying a new technique. Hits like a bullet." Whatever a bullet was.

Taako wasn't the sort of person to think too hard on these matters.

 


End file.
